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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29334906">Shape of water</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/favonius/pseuds/favonius'>favonius</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Boyz (Korea Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Not K-Pop Idols, Character Study, Coming Out, Coming of Age, Complicated Relationships, M/M, Non-Chronological</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 11:49:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,980</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29334906</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/favonius/pseuds/favonius</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Water<br/>(noun)<br/>&gt; The liquid that descends from the clouds as rain, forms streams, lakes, and seas. Has the ability to flow and take the shape of the container it is in. Makes other things wet. Has many forms. Has many faces.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ji Changmin | Q &amp; Everyone, Ji Changmin | Q/Kim Sunwoo, implied other changmin ships</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>39</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Shape of water</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Ji Changmin is seventeen, and he is a storm. Between his teeth, he crushes rocks, with his eyes he shoots lightning bolts, there is electricity under his skin. When he opens his mouth, it’s an onslaught of water, drowning everything, everyone, mercilessly. </p><p>His parents hate him, or so he is convinced. He hates them, too. There are many, so many people he hates, and the world hates him back. No one likes a storm, he is convinced.</p><p>“Let me stay the night,” Eric whispers between the kisses. As if it wasn’t clear from the invitation that Changmin wants him to. As if he didn’t invite him just to let him stay the night. As if it was Eric’s wish, not Changmin’s, to get soaked in the storm.</p><p>From between Changmin’s bedsheets, Eric’s voice comes muffled, with cotton and with tenderness. Changmin doesn’t think he has ever heard his own voice sound like this.</p><p>“I think I love you,” he says, and Changmin wishes he could say he froze up, that the storm stopped, that it turned into a hail. Maybe a shocking revelation would have been better than the silence, than the nothing.</p><p>“Go to sleep,” he doesn’t answer.</p><p>“Do you love me?” Eric insists. Changmin doesn’t want to do this, but maybe, he wonders. Maybe if he convinces himself. Maybe love isn’t something he understands, yet. Maybe it looks like someone who you want to have next to you when you sleep, when you wake up.</p><p>“I think I do,” he feels a chill bite his tongue, a tell tale of a lie. With numb fingers, he presses Eric closer. </p><p>Maybe it’ll be just like love if he’s not alone for one more day.</p><p>~~~~</p><p>Changmin is twenty, and he’s a sharp river. He’s flowing with direction, with determination, he doesn’t care about the obstacles on his ways. As always. A river will always find a way to flow, even over a dam. Especially over a dam.</p><p>“We never spend time together anymore,” Juyeon mutters from the couch, from above his open book.</p><p>Changmin feels himself roll over, tumble, flow. Splash. He puts his duffle bag down with a thud. </p><p>“You know I’ve been busy,” he’s still smiling, even though his smile is faltering.</p><p>Juyeon sighs, and it’s not a breath of temperance. It sounds like words choked back, and it scratches Changmin’s ears.</p><p>“What?” He didn’t want to argue, he didn't want to pick a fight. But he flows, and Juyeon isn’t going to stop him.</p><p>“I miss you, you know?” Juyeon’s earnest, but that doesn’t mean much.</p><p>“Listen, it’s not like we go weeks without seeing each other.”</p><p>Juyeon doesn’t fight either. He’s just hurt, earnest, genuine. He just wants something, and doesn’t know how to ask for it. Changmin isn’t going to stop. He isn’t going to hand anything to anyone.</p><p>“Do you even love me anymore?” The words don’t surprise Changmin when they finally fall.</p><p>“Do you have to ask?” He bites back. He doesn’t know if he means anything by it. He wants to be gone, wants to have an excuse to leave, like his classes, like his practice, like his job. </p><p>Juyeon’s lips move after this, but Changmin doesn’t have to listen. He’s heard it before. He knows what the answer means, because he handed it back to Juyeon with the question.</p><p>He doesn’t have to turn on his heel and slam the door to move on and move out. </p><p>~~~~</p><p>Changmin is twenty, he’s a teen, he’s a child, maybe he’s older than that, and he’s a creek. He bounces around and dances on the rocks and the silver fish glisten in him like teeth in a smile. Everyone loves him like that.</p><p>“I really love having you around,” Sangyeon smiles. </p><p>“I know, I’m your favourite,” Changmin smiles back. It’s easy. It’s so easy.</p><p>People are laughing back at whatever he does. He flows between them so naturally as if that was where he belonged for his entire life. Maybe it was. Maybe he does.</p><p>It’s just a millisecond, the way Hyunjoon’s eyes fall when he mentions his ankle.</p><p>“You know,” he grimaces. </p><p>Changmin knows. He knows the pain and the incapability and the specific burn of helplessness, of being denied the one thing you truly love. He knows the frustration. He knows how it makes you punch the floor and cry and want to never get up again, ever.</p><p>He looks away from Hyunjoon right after his smile picks back up.</p><p>“But it’s whatever. Right?” Hyunjoon doesn’t want to bring the mood down. Who would want to?</p><p>Who would want to stop being bouncy, stop splashing and shining in the sunlight?</p><p>No one, Changmin reminds himself. Certainly not him. That’s for when he gets home. That’s for when no one has to see him. He doesn’t falter.</p><p>It’s easy, he remembers once again when people laugh and he can join in on the joke, effortlessly, naturally, truly painlessly.</p><p>Changmin is a creek and he flows like a summer dream, full of joy, and people like him like that.</p><p>~~~~</p><p>Changmin is two hundred, two thousand, four million, and he is an ocean. He doesn’t know how deep other people go, but he knows he’s a trench, a valley, a crack in the tectonic plates and if you look down, you’ll see nothing but midnight blue. When Younghoon stops laughing, when they go outside, he knows Younghoon can see it too.</p><p>“Seriously, though, are you alright?” He asks, and this time Changmin doesn’t have a reason to lie on a reflex.</p><p>He lets himself think about it, consider it. He checks within the depth, looks as far as his eyes will penetrate the murky darkness, and comes back with hands empty.</p><p>“Yeah,” he says, and his tongue doesn’t bite. “Why?”</p><p>“You’re being distant again. Please, after the thing with you mum,” he doesn’t continue, he knows Changmin wouldn’t want him to. So he sighs, and he tries again. “Why don’t you talk to me?”</p><p>“There’s nothing to talk about.” And it’s true, Changmin knows. </p><p>Younghoon shakes his head. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”</p><p>They’ve had this discussion too many times before. As if Changmin was worried he will get hurt, as if he was worried Younghoon will try to hurt him. The vast depth of the ocean isn’t something one person can make a dent in, but Younghoon doesn’t seem to get it.</p><p>“I know,” he answers simply, but it doesn’t work.</p><p>~~~~</p><p>The life that bounces around in Changmin’s smile is what drives Juyeon closer, and it begs to be touched. It’s obnoxious how he can’t stop staring. Changmin doesn’t chastise him for it.</p><p>“You looked amazing up there,” he praises, and Changmin smiles back.</p><p>He knows. He’s been told. His charisma juts out and his aura changes and he’s magnetizing, he’s aware. That’s what he wants everyone to see. That’s what he looks so deeply into the mirror for.</p><p>“Thank you,” he says instead. “Happy to know I’ve impressed you.”</p><p>Juyeon doesn’t need to ask why Changmin would want to impress him. They can both feel it under their skin, bubbling. Tugging.</p><p>“Dinner?”</p><p>“Yes,” Changmin’s quick to answer, and he’s forced to pull back, rattle his bag. “I just need to drop these off, talk to the organizer.”</p><p>Juyeon understands it when Changmin runs off. Changmin is a river, and he can’t be stopped, and he only passes Juyeon for a moment.</p><p>Changmin flows, sharp, unrestrained. Juyeon thinks he could drown in him.</p><p>~~~~</p><p>The first time Changmin reads about the other people’s experience of the mortifying ordeal of being known, he casts it aside with a chuckle. No one will know him anyway, he thinks, and that’s on that. He remembers the phrase years later.</p><p>“I just can’t put up with the walls you put around yourself,” Younghoon has tears in his eyes. He always has. “I tried so hard, tried to get to you so hard. But it just never works.”</p><p>“I don’t know what you want from me,” Changmin says, again, and he thinks it’s true.</p><p>“I know being open, being seen, can be scary, but…”</p><p>Changin cuts him off, and he’s finally sick, the last drop has finally filled the cup.</p><p>“I’m not doing this anymore,” he stands up. “It’s just never fucking enough for you.”</p><p>That’s not what he means, but it’s what Younghoon has to hear, and it works. The shouting ends soon, and Changmin can leave, he can kick the rocks as he walks his walk home, steam rolling out from underneath his collar and a flood in his shoes.</p><p>The mortifying ordeal of being known isn’t the problem, he realizes. It’s the chilling knowledge of being misunderstood. The murky waters are too deep, and people look and look deeper and they just can’t see.</p><p>Changmin is an ocean, and in the vast expanse, in his depth, he is alone. </p><p>~~~~</p><p>Changmin is three, he is five, and he is a puddle. Inconvenient. Skipped over. Dirt on other people’s clothes.</p><p>“It’s not that, mum,” he chokes on from above his mug of tea. Sweet. Just how he liked it when he was younger. Just how he stopped taking it when he found out how much hassle it is to buy agave.</p><p>“Then what is it?” She grabs his knee, and the dam breaks. </p><p>He hates the tears he fights back, hates how they burn his eyes and how he wipes his nose. He hates how he can’t hold it back in anymore and how much he is risking.</p><p>He is only loved under certain conditions. </p><p>~~~~</p><p>“I hate you,” Eric has tears in his eyes and Changmin wishes he could care. Wishes he could be more heartbroken than this. His friends warned him about getting involved with younger guys.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” it’s half hearted. Eric doesn’t have to know.</p><p>“Are you?” He says it just to hurt Changmin. It doesn’t.</p><p>Changmin opens his mouth a few times again, and each time it’s a rolling thunder. Eric doesn't stare at him in adoration anymore.</p><p>“I tried to make this work, but you’re just too hard to love.”</p><p>Everyone hates him, Changmin reminds himself after Eric leaves, the words shouldn’t penetrate. The entire world hates him. He hates the world. This isn’t different.</p><p>He wants it to not be different.</p><p>It is.</p><p>Changmin is a thunderstorm, he cracks and flashes and ruins and he realizes he can’t be loved. </p><p>~~~~</p><p>Changmin is twenty odd, two dozen or so, or maybe less, or maybe more, and he is an iceberg. Imposing. Regal. Royal. He keeps the entire ocean in balance.</p><p>With all of the elegance in every move of his, he would have expected Chanhee to freeze his hands off trying to handle Changmin. Yet, he doesn’t. He puts on another golden ring, an insignia, a symbol of status. He is imposing, too, and maybe that’s what works.</p><p>“I’ve been thinking,” Chanhee stars with a purr. There is no telling what he’s thinking until he decides to voice it out. Changmin listens.</p><p>“You’re always thinking.”</p><p>Chanhee takes it like a kiss to the temple, and he smiles.</p><p>“If I don’t get the promotion, I’m gonna quit.”</p><p>Changmin can’t be surprised. If there’s anything Chanhee knows, it’s his worth.</p><p>“Well, I don’t think you could not be promoted when your newest line looks like this,” Changmin knows how to speak to Chanhee. Knows how much he needs a compliment, a word of encouragement, knows how to give it.</p><p>Chanhee takes a bite out of his full plate before answering. “I knew you’d say this.”</p><p>This is a melody they both know how to play, and it sounds so good. Changmin doesn’t mind the effort when it comes. Some things are worth it, he thinks.</p><p>“How’s the studio?” He asks, and Changmin likes the attention.</p><p>“Not that well,” and there’s a whole essay hidden behind these words. He’ll give it to Chanhee. He knows how to.</p><p>They do the dishes together. It’s a well practiced motion. </p><p>~~~~</p><p>There are so many words he could pick, Changmin thinks, but none of them sound right. He chooses the ones that hurt the most.</p><p>“I’m gay, mum,” he chokes out, and the way in which he wipes his tears becomes laughable. He doesn’t want it. He hates it. He forgets about the hand on his knee.</p><p>When the answer doesn’t come, he dares looking up, and the soft smile he sees on his mother’s face, for once, doesn’t feel like reassurement.</p><p>“Honey, it doesn’t matter to me, you know? You’re still my baby.”</p><p>Changmin wants it to matter, he takes a breath in to say so, but he doesn’t know why. It should change everything, he thinks, and he doesn’t understand why it doesn’t, and yet again, what other outcome could he wish for?</p><p>“I’m sorry,” he tries, voice drowned behind his tears. </p><p>He’s being wrapped in a hug that feels so safe, the safest anything has felt in his entire life. </p><p>“Don’t be sorry, baby. Nothing to be sorry over.”</p><p>Changmin doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry more. He thinks he does both. </p><p>The tea gets cold and then he gets another one, sweet, with agave. It’s simple. It's difficult. It’s all the things Changmin never wanted and all the things he never expected, except it’s nothing like his worst nightmares, nothing like his fears.</p><p>Changmin is a puddle, a reminder of a spring shower, a spot for flowers to bloom, and he is loved.</p><p>~~~~</p><p>When Chanhee sits at the table, rolling his ring on his finger, he doesn’t look different than usual. Changmin doesn’t know what he’s thinking until he says it.</p><p>“I still want to be friends,” he reassures, and Changmin knows he wouldn’t say it if he didn’t mean it. Still, it feels like a consolation prize and an excuse. “This just isn’t working out.”</p><p>He wants to say he doesn’t understand, but that feels juvenile. He says nothing.</p><p>“Do you want me to,” he stops himself. This isn’t what he wants to say. “What can I do differently?”</p><p>Chanhee shakes his head. “I don’t think you could do anything better.”</p><p>Changmin hears two different sentences hidden underneath this one. He wonders which one he should take to heart.</p><p>“I’m sorry.” </p><p>Chanhee grabs his hand. “Don’t be.”</p><p>Changmin never liked hearing that less.</p><p>“I love you a lot, Changmin, this just isn’t what I need.”</p><p>If there is anything Chanhee knows, it’s his self worth.</p><p>“I don’t think this is anyone’s fault. We gave this a good try, you know? And it worked for a while.”</p><p>If there’s anyone Chanhee knows, it’s himself.</p><p>“You’re a wonderful guy, Changmin. More wonderful than you think, actually. I wish you would see just how great you are.” The silence stretches infinite, icy, cold. </p><p>Changmin has to annoy the answer out of Chanhee. It’s only after pressing against all the gold when Chanhee loses his elegant gesture, makes an ugly expression.</p><p>“I can’t be with someone who doesn’t know himself.”</p><p>Changmin is an iceberg, cold, stoic, floating. Hidden under the surface, hidden so well he can’t see the end. He’s in control of the entire sea, his levels dictate the climate, his surface doesn’t allow any life. He doesn’t change. Changmin is an iceberg, and he breaks.</p><p>~~~~</p><p>Changmin doesn’t count birthdays.</p><p>“I want to try,” Sunwoo says, and it’s a swirl.</p><p>They’ve never been further apart, Changmin thinks, despite knowing that they’ve never been closer. It’s a mystery he doesn’t have the time to solve.</p><p>“I don’t know,” he answers, and he really doesn’t.</p><p>There were so many chances for him to try, he knows, because he’s denied himself all of them. It’s an effort he’s not willing to go through, it’s an effort he’s afraid of. </p><p>“I know you trust me,” Sunwoo says something else after that and Changmin can’t focus on it.</p><p>He wants to deny Sunwoo. He’s seen Changmin up close, yes, he has seen Changmin break down and come back up again. He has seen Changmin glow and bounce, he has heard him thunder, he’s swam into the vast expanse right until the edge of the ice, but it’s not trust. Changmin just doesn’t have things to hide. He’s never tried to hide, anyway.</p><p>“Do you trust me?” He asks instead, and Sunwoo laughs out a beautiful sound.</p><p>“Of course.”</p><p>It seems  to come easily, and Changmin doesn’t understand. He’s witnessed it be hard before.</p><p>“It’s a shitty job, being with me.”</p><p>Sunwoo shrugs. “I’m not the world’s easiest person either.”</p><p>“No,” Changmin starts, and doesn’t finish.</p><p>No, but you wear that on your sleeve. No, but you put in the effort. No, but it’s not your fault. </p><p>None of these work.</p><p>“No, but I’m still afraid. I’ve got my issues,” he’s learned to not pretend he doesn’t. He’s learned to understand his form doesn’t come to everyone, and his sea lanterns don’t light up like they should. “I’m not an easy person to love.”</p><p>His hands are being grabbed tight. </p><p>“But we’ve been going well so far.”</p><p>It’s something he’s been denying for long enough and if he tries harder, he can deny it still. If he doesn’t try at all, he can deny it still. It’s a pit in his stomach opening up and calling him in.</p><p>“You’re right,” Changmin breaks himself.</p><p>“Let me love you, alright?”</p><p>The conditions no longer add up. Perhaps it’s okay, Changmin thinks he can risk even the things he can’t calculate. He’s been swimming his entire life, and the deep end shouldn’t be scary.</p><p>Sunwoo kisses him with the tenderness that has been between his lips this entire time. Changmin lets it happen. Changmin kisses back.</p><p>Sunwoo is a process.</p><p>Changmin takes the shape of the vessel he is in, he is not what he makes others to be, he is anything, everything, and he is water.</p><p>
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